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Momodou
Denmark
11516 Posts |
 Posted - 01 May 2021 : 00:21:33
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Knowledge, Conscience and Patriotism
By Madi Jobarteh
When lawyers deliberate it is considered to be an informed deliberation, based on ethics and guided by justice. I guess it is for this that they call lawyers the ‘learned’ and the rest of us, the laypeople! No wonder when our learned women and men appeared before the TRRC, there’s so much reference to knowledge and intelligence!
That being the case, let me say that the testimonies of former Ministers of Justice - Fafa Mbai, Mama Singhateh, Lamin Jobarteh and Amie Bensouda - leaves much to be desired. They played logic and legalese and outright denial and falsehoods before the nation just to cleanse themselves. The AFPRC and APRC regimes, more so the cabinet of Yaya Jammeh were so dirty that no one could engage in them and stay clean! Unless if one is a painter, who can paint a white wall into a black wall just like that!
The evidence of the notoriety of the despicable AFPRC/APRC regime is clear like noonday sun! Yaya Jammeh is such a stinking scumbag that one cannot be his top adviser and still stay clean! You cannot be an adviser to a thief, a rapist, a looter, a murderer and a criminal par excellence yet claim to be an honest and just person!
If so, then Rudy Giuliani, chief adviser of Donald Trump, would be a saint! The fact that Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s lawyer is in jail today for services done for Trump shows that one cannot serve a tyrant and a criminal and stay clean! So how could Fafa, Amie, Lamin and Mama claim cleanliness?
Therefore for them to have taken that job and performed for Yaya Jammeh for even more 24 hours without realizing the wrongness of their role and resign immediately shows that they cannot exonerate themselves from the decisions and actions of that brutal dictatorship. These people are major architects of that autocracy. That is the fact.
The claim that one was serving The Gambia, and not Jammeh is just an empty diversion. The fact is, the Government is the Government of the President. The President appoints and fires ministers at his pleasure. Hence a minister is in the Cabinet to serve the interest of the President. Every minister knows that, and therefore one should know if that interest of the President was for national interest or for selfish interest.
Even if they felt that they were doing their job with the best of intentions, at the end of the day, and even before the end of the day, it was clear that their contributions produced the wrong effect. Hence, knowledge and courage with a deep sense of honesty, patriotism and conscience should have guided them to acknowledge the mess and seek forgiveness and suggest how to avoid such errors in future! It’s therefore tragic that they allowed humility and conscience to eskew them by seeking to feign ignorance with a bunch of false excuses full of disinformation!
For example, if there’s a military coup today, would anyone of them advice a younger lawyer to take the offer to serve as Minister of Justice in that regime? I am sure, on hindsight they would strongly advice that lawyer not to associate with such a regime! Why? Because they knew from their own personal and professional experiences that it was a mess to have joined such a regime!
I am sure there’s nothing about the AFPRC regime for which Fafa Mbai or Amie Bensouda would be proud of, if they are honest to their conscience. Similarly, if guided by their conscience, I am sure Lamin Jobarteh and Mama Singhateh have nothing to be proud of about APRC. Together, all four of them cannot claim to be proud of Yaya Jammeh, if they are truly well knowledgeable and honest!
I just hope the young people and the current generation of public officials are learning lessons from the tragic mistakes of these people. If you are a public officer who strongly claims and believes that you are serving your country and not a corrupt president or minister or director then leave immediately you notice that your leader is seeking selfish interest above national interest. After all many people did that and still kept their lives and property in tact. But even if it cost your life, it would have been an invaluably worthy and dignified life lived to be emulated by generations upon generations! Do not allow to be used as a dice to serve the personal interest of that leader.
Our people must practice what we claim! If we claim to be knowledgeable, or claim to believe in God or claim to be well cultured, then let the values embedded in our laws, faith and culture underpin and guide our behavior and conduct! Otherwise, it is called pretension aka hypocrisy!
For The Gambia Our Homeland
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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Knowledge, Conscience and Patriotism
